Forrester Research: Mobility Management, Tighter Security, And Migration To IP Dominate 2006 Plans

Forrester Research has issued new research that finds "gaining control over wireless environments is the highest telecom priority for North American firms, according to a new survey of 1,500 telecom decision-makers. Enterprises and small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) ranked setting wireless policy and centralizing management of mobile devices as the top two telecom initiatives for 2006. Budgets reflect these priorities: In 2006, SMBs plan to spend closer to one-third more on both mobile voice and mobile data services than in 2005. Fifty-six percent of enterprises expect spending on mobile voice to increase, and 63 percent expect mobile data spending to increase."

Forrester noted that "companies of all sizes spend nearly one-quarter of their telecom budgets on wireless services, and that number continues to grow. The percentage of large companies that have increased mobile data spending has doubled since 2005, and 19 percent of the enterprise workforce now uses mobile data applications. SMBs expect 23 percent of their workforce to use mobile data by the end of 2006." Key highlights include:

• SMB adoption of wireless email (28 percent) and calendaring (25 percent) lags behind adoption in enterprises (71 percent and 66 percent, respectively).
• Wireless email adoption is set to grow for SMBs, with 26 percent rolling out or piloting these services in 2006.
• With adoption of mobile email exceeding 70 percent, large companies are now turning to evaluating and deploying mobile line-of-business applications such as mobile sales force automation, logistics, and customer relationship management (CRM). Adoption levels vary widely by industry.